Red Rover, Red Rover
by Nightblade888
Summary: Red John's been the big bad wolf in California for years, but no more. Kyle Craig has taken an interest, and so he begins a new game that brings in Alex Cross. Can Jane accept the help, or will his pride interfere? I don't own Mentalist or Alex Cross.
1. Chapter 1

**Monday Morning-San Francisco, California**

He loved to walk back through the crime scenes he had created. Psychopaths usually tried to insert themselves into the investigation of their crimes, Red John was no exception. It was always about control, making those idiots that called themselves police do what he wanted them to. He was a control freak, and damn proud of it. He was in total control from the moment he entered his victims house, from the minute he ended the women's lives, and beyond. It was all so obvious to him. But then again, he was the man with all the answers, the man who had no equal.

Oh, Patrick Jane wished himself his equal, he wanted to be as smart as Red John. He prayed for it every night and every day. The fake psychic had always fancied himself an equal to Red John, but in truth, he wasn't even in the same zip code. No one was. Lisbon and her team were incompetent at best, even with Jane, they were only a decent team. Oh sure, they had the highest closure and solve rate in the CBI, but they were the only major case unit. Everyone else ran investigations into gang and mafia violence. Much lower solve rates, but every single one had a higher conviction rate. For every three murderers that Patrick Jane caught, one point two of them received a reduced sentence.

And that was unacceptable to Red John. He lived for punishment, lived for order. Every kill was a punishment, every brutalized woman a consequence to a wrong. There were no 'innocent victims' as the media liked to portray them. They all had skeletons, people just weren't digging deep enough.

Getting to walk through his crime scenes was a privilege that not many others got to experience. Most had to settle for taunting the police, Red John actually got to direct the investigation in a bit more personal way. He had interviewed the witness that had discovered his handiwork in every case he had created. It was better than any trophy he could have taken from the bodies he left behind.

He thanked the now traumatized husband and walked inside the house he had visited just over ten hours ago. Theresa Lisbon was ordering Wayne Rigsby around in her usual manner, Grace Van Pelt and Kimball Cho were dusting for fingerprints on the kitchen table, not that they'd find any. It was refreshing to see the lemmings doing as he wanted. No one paid him any attention. If only they had known. The man they had been hunting for seemingly forever, the monster that gave them nightmares, was in the room with them!

As Red John walked into the living room he found his favorite plaything. No matter how many times he did it, playing with Patrick Jane never grew old. The fraud never even suspected that the man who had butchered his wife and daughter was in the same room with him. Not even in the slightest. The dirty blond was currently walking around, looking at the mantle place, trying to determine if the murder weapon, a beautiful African statuette, had come from the marble fixture. But right now, Patrick Jane wasn't even registering on Red John's radar. There was something else that was dominating his vision. It was just sitting there, right in plain sight, right were he had picked up the carved wooden murder weapon. Patrick obviously hadn't gotten around to looking at it, because as idiotic as he was, even he couldn't miss this.

At first glance it made him want to laugh. A greeting card? That was all? He definitely hadn't left or touched or even envisioned a greeting card, so what was so interesting about a damn Hallmark card? It was a cheap pink card with a golden glittery 'Missing You' scrawled on the front. Donning rubber gloves, Red John edged past his toy and picked up the folded card stock and opened it up.

The inside was blank, at least as far as a preprinted message went, but someone had filled it in. Someone, whatever inconsiderate bastard had dared to ruin his perfect crime scene, had written in black ink and nearly perfect penmanship a short message.

_Alex-Been thinking about you lately, have really missed our chats. I know it's short notice, but maybe this'll convince you to come back out west. _

_Hope the family is well,_

_KC_

As if this intrusion into a perfectly happy memory for Red John wasn't bad enough, this KC had even gone as far as to bastardize his the trademark smiley face. Drawing a winking smiley face in blood on the left inside of the card with the victims blood, just like he would have done.

By now, Patrick had noticed and began to read over the card, while it was still in Red John's hands. Somehow, Jane's silence had drawn Lisbon into the room as well. By the time he had shaken himself out of his current funk, Red John simply handed the card to her and walked outside. The house was contaminated, there could be no joy taken from walking back into the bedroom at this point. As he ducked back under the crime scene tape that crossed over the front door he could just make out Jane's query.

"I thought her name was Pamela?

**

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**

From his position in his driveway across the street, Kyle Craig, known with hatred and fear in Maryland and Virginia as the Mastermind, watched the circus go on across the street. The CBI was out in force, fat load of good it would do, they'd never caught Red John and wouldn't this time. They wouldn't even have half a clue, if he hadn't gone back into the house and left that little note.

It had been so long since he had been around someone like Red John. He had to go all the way back to his college days when he went hunting with William Rudolph and Nick Ruskin. But it had been years since the deaths of the Gentleman Caller and Casanova and Kyle had long since outgrown the need to be around others like him. They were all too stupid and Red John was no better than the others he had caught when he was with the FBI. Hell, Mr. Smith, amateur that he was, proved more interesting than Red John. So, why had Kyle provoked him? Red John was nothing more than a means to an end. He was the bait that would lure Alex Cross out of Washington DC and allow Kyle to kill the man known as the dragon slayer.

He saw Red John, the man he knew to be the 'Most Vicious Murderer in California History' as the papers called him. There was no risk of exposing himself, so he walked over, just as Red John was about to get into his car.

"Pardon me." He asked, making his target stop, one foot inside his car.

"No comment." Was the reply.

"I'm sorry, I live across the street and I just got home, what's going on?" He asked, grabbing the driver's door forcing a response.

"I'm afraid their's been a murder here, Mister..."

"Nate Johnson."

"Well, Mr. Johnson, I'm afraid I can't comment on an active investigation, but don't worry, the best investigative team the CBI has is on the case, they'll catch the monster that did this."

"Oh, you're with the CBI? I hadn't realized it was that serious. They didn't seem like a couple to be involved in that kind of business."

"What kind of business would that be?" Red John got back out of the SUV and looked 'Mr. Johnson' right in the face.

"Drug smuggling of course. If the CBI is involved it's probably related to Organized Crime, right?"

"Well, you don't need to worry, there aren't any links between organized crime and your neighbors. I'm afraid they're simply victims of a random act of violence."

"Oh, well, thank you, that's a load of my mind." Kyle extended his hand and shook hands with _his_ guinea pig. "Thank you a lot...um I afraid I don't know your name."

"Virgil Minelli."

"Well thank you very much."

**

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**

Kyle waited until he was sure Minelli would be in his office before he called him using the number he had gotten through the DOJ. As a nice little tribute he even used the phone line of Red John's victim, Pamela Cleary.

"Minelli."

"Mr. Minelli, you don't know me, but suffice it to say that I know everything about you."

"Who is this? And how did you get this number?" There wasn't a hint of fear in Virgil's voice, Kyle was thankful for that. To think that someone like Red John could be frightened with such a weak threat would destroy what little respect he had for the man.

"Suffice it to say, that you are not the only one who can use the DOJ database to fulfill their own needs. My name is Kyle Craig."

"The so called Mastermind."

"I see my reputation precedes me, but don't think that means anything, _Red John. _The game has just started."

"What game?" He didn't deny it! Red John might just prove to be interesting yet.

"It's simple, do you see you're 'lead agent' right now? Do ya'... Virgil?"

Taking a look up, Minelli looked across the hallway into Theresa Lisbon's office and saw her typing her report on his crime scene.

"Yeah, so?"

"Right now, as I speak and you watch, she's typing her report for the day, which you already knew, but she doesn't know what she's about to do. The moment she finishes that report and inputs it into any database, there are certain computer programs that will latch onto a couple key phrases she's using. Things that will let the FBI know I'm in California."

"You want the FBI to come out here? You're dumber than I had heard."

"Don't flatter yourself. You're the only one who is in any danger of being caught, Red, I'm untouchable."

"The FBI won't be able to catch me, you had your time, I'm the biggest and baddest thing in the state." Minelli fired back.

Kyle Craig just laughed into the receiver.

"Oh, I don't know, you're good, but so are the Feds, but they're not the point. When they fail to catch me, they'll bring out Alex Cross. And he's the one you've got to watch out for. He is better than you, far better."

"NO ONE is better than me!" Minelli hissed back, all the venom he could muster, evident in his voice. "Not you, not this Cross. I'll find you and then we'll see whose better than who."

"Oh Virgil...so much to learn. If, _if_ you can survive Alex Cross, which I doubt very much, then I'll set up a meeting. Just the two of us, madman to madman."

Having thrown the gauntlet, Kyle hung up with a laugh. Like he had said, the game had indeed begun.

**

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**

**Wednesday Morning-CBI Headquarters, Sacramento, California**

Patrick Jane sat at his desk with his eyes closed. In his mind, the details of every Red John case he had ever worked flashed through his consciousness. Things like body position, the coroner's reports from all the victims, even minutia like the location and types of shoes worn by the victims ran round and round his head. The first rule of pattern killers like Red John was to find what commonality the victims had.

And that happened to be the first problem with Red John. Outside of the fact that his victims were women (with the exception of Jared Renfrew), there just weren't similarities. Most were Caucasian and between 25 and 35, but out of the now fourteen victims, seven were white, four were Hispanic and of the last three one was African American, one was Japanese, and the other was Korean.

Having failed to find a commonality between victims, Patrick moved onto trying to find differences between the crimes. Red John didn't deviate much. He sneaks into the victims houses while they're alone, attacks them with a stun gun first, to incapacitate them. Restrains them in their own bedrooms and then beats them with some kind of object found in the house. This didn't kill the poor women, he then proceeded to take a knife, always the same one, and stab them multiple times in the body before he would go on and mutilate their genitals.

Red John never strayed from this pattern, except with Jared Renfrew and Patrick's wife and daughter. Those were the only two times. He painted Patrick's wife, Isabel's toe nails red, in her own blood, and the bastard had beaten Mellisa, his little girl, so extensively, that her beautiful face and hair were caked in so much blood that she was nearly unrecognizable.

Then there were the communications. Red John never taunted police, never sent them letters like the BTK killer or Jack the Ripper. Yet he left a note at the scene of Jane murders and at the crime scene of Jared Renfrew.

This last murder, of Pamela Cleary, was text book Red John, until the card was found. It was puzzling, how did a card for someone named Alex, get into Pamela and Jonathan Cleary's house? What was the significance to Red John? It had to be related, someone had left it there, but not even Patrick, with his uncanny ability to link just about anyone and anything, couldn't connect Pamela with someone named Alex, and it wasn't until the FBI had shown up and taken over the case, that the link between Alex and this KC had been found.

Kyle Craig was another serial killer along the same lines as Red John. According to the FBI, Kyle made Red John look like a child. Jane doubted it. There simply couldn't be anyone or anything more evil than Red John. It was simply not possible. None the less, this Alex Cross character, seemed interesting. A smart man, he had received his Doctorate in psychology from John Hopkins and had worked for Washington DC metro police and even the FBI for a while, catching some of the most violent and evil criminals to roam around Washington DC.

However, his few excursions out into California were less impressive to Patrick. The teenage vampires weren't all that impressive of a capture, and while Michael Bell, the man who had murdered celebrities to prove his worth, was very insane, he wasn't all that clever, nothing like Red John.

Whatever Patrick's feelings on Kyle Craig, Red John and Alex Cross, they didn't matter. The FBI had already said that they were bringing Cross in from Washington, even if he wasn't with them any more. He was the only person to ever catch Craig, and the note was addressed to him anyway.

Finally opening his eyes, Patrick watched as Lisbon came in and called the team into the morning briefing. Besides the four CBI agents, their consultant and boss, the FBI had brought in a team of six agents, and now Alex Cross sat with the case file from the most recent murder in his lap.

Patrick watched from the back of the room as the FBI liaison, Gregory Kim, cleared his throat for order. Kim was not very tall, and had eaten too much fast food earlier on in life. When they had first met, Van Pelt had elbowed Rigsby in the side and reminded him that this is what he'd look like in ten years...except with less hair.

"For the benefit of Dr Cross, I want everyone to introduce themselves, I know a couple of you might know of him, but you're all new faces." One by one everyone in the room went around and gave their names to the visiting psychologist. Once that boring ritual was complete, the floor was turned over to Dr. Cross, so that he could brief the CBI team to what Kyle Craig was capable of. It wasn't until he stood up that Patrick realized how imposing the detective actually was. Standing at six foot three and weighing about 235 pounds or so, Alex Cross made Rigsby seem a bit thin and frail. His hair was beginning to gray a bit and there were some wrinkles forming in his black skin, but despite the signs of his age, Cross demanded respect.

"The first thing that everyone needs to know about Kyle Craig is that he knows exactly what we're going to do. He was as Special Agent and knows the FBI play book by heart. He's operated in California before, albeit briefly, but he does know his way around the state." He paused as if choosing his words for a minute.

"Kyle fits the profile of what is termed an 'omnivore'. Unlike Red John, who hunts almost exclusively women, Kyle will kill anyone so long as he is able to prove that he is smarter than us. While Red John doesn't usually leave communications, Kyle will. We'll know exactly who he's murdered and they will be far, _**far**_worse than anything that you've seen before."

"Bullshit!" Patrick coughed. For an outsider to come in and arbitrarily say that Kyle Craig was worse than Red John was an insult in the consultant's mind. While the interruption received a reproachful glare from Lisbon, Cross seemed to have ignored it and continued on.

"Kyle is capable, though unlikely, to be working with an accomplice, he's done it before, as a student at Duke University, Kyle ran with two other killers, William Rudolph and Nick Ruskin. Some of you should know about Rudolph, he operated out of LA by the name 'The Gentleman Caller'." A few eyes showed recognition, though many didn't seem to know about the narcissist who terrorized women in the city of angels many years ago.

"Kyle is highly intelligent, his IQ is above 175 and likely pushing 200 if not above that. He is capable of erasing any traces of himself forensically as well as electronically. He is physically strong and can disguise himself well enough to blend into any crowd he wishes."

Cross paused to consider his thoughts for a second and Patrick Jane had to open his mouth.

"If Craig is so good, then how come he was caught?" For a moment, Cross' eyes met Jane's, and they just stared at each other.

"It's true, I captured Kyle Craig before. Its true that he's gone to jail. Some of you may even know that I physically knocked him out...twice, but most of that was deception and luck. Not so much the punching out part, but had I not tricked him into a conference call with my home answering machine. Without that tape, despite all of my profiling and my certainty that he was the Mastermind, he would have walked. He has murdered dozens of people, maybe even as many as a hundred or more. He's convinced people to rob banks and murder for him. He's raped women, he's destroyed families and had it not been for the five dollar tape in my answering machine, he would have walked free."

Remembering the details of chasing Kyle Craig around Virginia and Maryland had brought back unpleasant memories for the Doctor/Detective, Jane could tell. But nightmares and ghost stories of murderers past wouldn't change Patrick's mind. Red John was more evil than anyone, and no amount of psycho-babel would change his mind.

"I think Jane brings up a valid point." Rigsby voiced. "How can you be so sure that this Kyle Craig character is going to be more violent than Red John? I mean, crime scene photos only convey so much." There was a murmuring of general consent. Even Doctor Cross agreed with that statement, there was only so much that could be taken and inferred from photographs.

"It's because of the card and because of who Kyle is. No doubt he knew that by leaving the card, eventually it would get back to the FBI, and then they would have to come out here. Kyle thinks he is smarter than we are, he thinks he is smarter than everyone. So when The CBI focused on Red John, and all the papers began to proclaim him the most vicious killer in California, that must have struck a nerve. But, being Kyle, he couldn't just murder someone and leap frog his way back to the top of the list. So he piggy backs Red John, uses one mad man's crimes to put himself back in the forefront of our minds. He's using Red John, just like he's using the CBI, FBI, like he's using me. He's going to try and prove that he's smarter than all of us, and the only way to do that, is to become more notorious than Red John. Prove we've been focusing on the wrong guy."

Cross stopped talking just as a young Hispanic woman walked through the door. She was dressed in the uniform of DHL, and had a small package under her arm. Though it was wrapped in butcher paper, it seemed to be about the size of a shoe box and didn't weigh a lot. She stopped when she realized that she didn't know exactly who to deliver her parcel to.

"Um, is there a Dr. Cross here?"

The visiting doctor raised his hand and within seconds had signed for the package and thanked the delivery woman. As soon as she was out the door, Cross had carefully began to unwrap the package. Sure enough the waxy paper gave way to reveal a box for Nike size twelve and a half shoes. Everyone seemed to hold their breath as Cross opened. When they wasn't an explosion, everyone crowded forward wanting to see inside.

Unsurprisingly there wasn't a pair of Air Jordan's, but instead there was a clutter of different things. A hallmark card, just like the one that had been at the crime scene, a Rubik's cube and a small six ounce bag of Columbian coffee. Underneath those, were coupons for various restaurants that were within spitting distance of the CBI building.

Jane had immediately reached into the box and taken out the toy, turning it over in his hands, feeling the smooth plastic. It reminded him of his childhood. The puzzle toy was his favorite plaything as a small boy, and it had led him down his path to becoming a mentalist. He had memorized every combination of moves, every imperfection and knick on his toy. This toy was much too new to be his beloved toy, but it was used and had been sitting in the sunlight for some time, judging by the washed colors on three of the sides.

Looking at the others, Jane noticed Dr. Cross handling the card as if it might catch fire. Gregory Kim had opened the unground coffee and was inhaling the smell like it was cocaine. The first thought that flitted through Jane's already racing mind, was that Red John was breaking pattern. That he was taunting the joint task force and asserting his dominance. But when he looked back at the toy in his hands it became very clear that Red John wasn't responsible. While the greeting card and the coffee were brand new, the toy was old, and that made it an outlier. Kyle could have easily purchased a brand new toy and sent it, but instead, he sent an old toy.

Turning it over and staring at the colorful stickers, Jane deduced that it could be solved in four more moves, so why had it sat unfinished for long enough to become light damaged? Somehow, that knowledge began to tug at a memory in Jane's subconscious. It was slow to come to the surface, but like a shark attack, it erupted through the waters of his mind in a blur of motion and teeth. He dropped the toy to the ground immediately.

It was Mellisa's. It was his little girls puzzle. After the murders that had shaken Jane to his core, he hadn't changed a thing in his house. Everything stood as it had on that day, his impressive house, a once happy place, full of life, had become a hermetically sealed time capsule that he dared not touch until Red John was dead. Kyle Craig had not only gone into his house, he actually defiled it, removing his beloved daughter's toy. It hadn't been her favorite, but Jane loved to see her play with it, just as he had done in his youth.

For only the second time in his impressive memory, Jane's mind just shut down. A complete and sudden halt to every function he had conscious control over. Van Pelt placed a hand on his shoulder, asking if he was okay, and he just stood there. Didn't answer, didn't brush her off in his usual way. It wasn't until Lisbon walked over and showed the same concern for her consultant, that Jane awoke.

He couldn't speak and he refused to sit down when Kimball Cho pushed a chair behind him and attempted to take his knees out from under him. Instead, he walked out of the briefing room and headed to the nearest bathroom. On his way out, he knew that Cross would continue his speech. Continue to explain how Kyle Craig was more a threat to the public than Red John. Jane knew that was a lie.

Kyle Craig had dared intrude into Patrick's mind, to try and toy with him! Kyle wanted to be bigger than Red John, but Patrick Jane decided right then and there, that he wouldn't let him. Jane would catch Kyle Craig long before the Mastermind could re-establish himself.

**

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**

Just as he had thought, when he stepped out out of the bathroom, having splashed his face with water, like so many cliched movies, he found Lisbon waiting, arms crossed and a worried look on her face and the seemingly forgotten toy in her hands. She held it out to him, not expecting him to just grab it and take a step back to the briefing room.

"Jane-"

He cut her off with his usual smile. "I'm okay, it was just a shock, that's all." He walked away before she could respond or ask any questions.

Lisbon could only watch as the back of his expensive suit disappeared back into the briefing room. A frown spread over her face. She worried about Jane every time a Red John case came up. How would he handle it, being faced with the man who had ruined his life? Until now, he had been doing remarkably well...for Jane anyway. Lisbon was with Jane in her belief that Red John was the more serious threat, but now she was forced to concede that Cross had a point. Craig was smart, Craig was dangerous, and he knew how to pull people's strings.

By the time she had taken her seat once more, everyone in the room had recovered from Jane's little outburst and the Doctor/Detective was ready to continue his briefing.

"Like I was saying, Kyle is out to prove that he is bigger and badder than Red John. To do that, he's going to beat Red John at his own game. This is probably the most frightening scenario we could find ourselves in. Not only are there two very dangerous killers on the loose, but they're going to be in direct competition with each other. In the short term, there is going to be an increase in activities from both Kyle and Red John."

That was a frightening thought indeed. Normally Red John went months between victims, to see that window shortened, not to mention that there would be a second killer out there...all of their recourses would be stretched thin until there was a resolution.

"Shit." Minelli swore. "The public is gonna go into a panic, especially the women. Two violent sex offenders? This will be a PR nightmare." There was a murmur of agreement from the room.

"Actually, it's much worse than that." Alex Cross once more became the center of attention. "While Red John's crimes have all the signs of a sexually based crime, there are inconstancies with that theory." No one dared to question Cross on that point. Mostly because they couldn't speak. Red John's crimes, not sexual? He murdered only women, brutalized women to the point of pulp, and they weren't sexual?

"By in large, sex crimes aren't about sex. Rape isn't about sex, but the feeling of control that the rapist gets from dominating his victim. In those cases, the rapist will leave the victim alive, to relish in that feeling of superiority. When the victim is found dead, it is a sign that the rape or sex was either spontaneous, a by product of the murder, or merely convenient. With Red John, the victims are not only murdered, but in a horribly violent way. When he's done, he doesn't touch the body again, and often, the victims are either unconscious or unable to move due to the stun gun or the beating." While most of the room was following along, there were a few, mostly on the CBI side of the room, that were very skeptical.

"Red John doesn't just target the women, but the men. All the victims had either a husband, fiancée or live in boyfriend. He leaves the bloody calling card so that when someone walks into the room, that is the first thing they see, they know exactly what to expect and that is where Red John gets his sense of control. He enjoys the pain and suffering of the male as much as he does physically dominating the women, if not more. He is controlling to the point of destruction. He enjoys destroying 'happy' families, ruining the lives of those he leaves alive."

He took a moment to grab a legal pad from his seat and flip through his notes, seeing if he had forgotten anything.

"That's all I'm comfortable saying now, until I get some more information, anything else I have would be conjecture."

He sat down and George Kim took over again. Within ten minutes, The FBI were heading off to interview anyone with DHL that might have handled the package, and the CBI were off working on the Pamela Cleary case. Alex Cross didn't move from the briefing room, but accepted the complete case reports from the Red John murders. With Kyle Craig's photo being circulated on television and in print, there was nothing to do on that front until a valid tip came in, or he contacted them again. So he filled his time refining his profile of Red John. Kyle was using him to get to Alex, so it wasn't a waste of time, but it felt like he was just sitting on his hands.

Patrick Jane didn't take his eyes off the D.C. Cop. Cross had come in, off a five hour flight, and in twenty minutes shaken the Red John case to the ground. Patrick thought back to the murder of his family. Cross had verified Red John's note, Patrick really had brought this upon himself, acting as if he were a gift to mankind. Now the brutality made sense, he had wanted to ruin Patrick's life beyond measure, to be a puppet master to a Jane's soulless husk. The inconsistencies also became clear, and showed just how much about Patrick Red John knew.

Patrick was a loving father and caring husband, great words to put on his tombstone, but they were true. He was wrapped around his wife and daughter's fingers like the cheapest string. If they wanted ice cream, he couldn't deny them. Toys, or knives, or vacations, they had it. He was doting and loved nothing more than to sit with Mellisa in his arms and stroke her hair as she read or watched a movie. To marvel at her perfect face, at how beautiful she was. Red John had taken not only his daughter, but that memory away from him. By butchering his poor daughter's face, Jane couldn't bare to relive that feeling of bliss and happiness.

And Isabella! The first time he had met her, she had just come out of a nail salon and the only thing he could manage to do, was compliment her toenails, which she had just had painted. It became a ritual in their lives, and throughout the course of their marriage, he must have spent hundred of hours, just painting her toenails and giving her countless foot massages. And Red John had stolen that too. By painting her toes in her own blood, he claimed that part of Izzy too, not just her body, but her memory. He claimed every bit of the women that Red Jane loved, and it broke something inside him.

As Jane watched Alex Cross work, he began to revisit everything he remembered about Red John. He began to look for alternative motives in his head. Subconsciously he began to turn Mellisa's puzzle over and over as his mind worked. Over, and over and over....

**

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**

Virgil Minelli walked back to his office with a light sweat forming under his immaculately tailored suit. Craig was right, Cross _was_ good. All of the camouflage, all of the smoke he had laid to hide the real motives for his hobby were swept away in one thirty minute speech. He was still a bit rattled when his phone rang and instinctively he picked up the receiver.

"What?!" He snapped.

"Dan Stevenson, with the San Francisco Chronicle, do you have a moment to comment on-"

Minelli didn't let the yuppy reporter finish before he hung up. Kyle Craig dared to cross him, and there had to be repercussions...

**

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**

**(A/N: Once more, I do not have any degree or training in psychology. I began writing this, mostly because most of the readers out there, didn't like the twist in my other Mentalist story and no, I'm not saying what that is, you'll have to read it to find out (hint hint). This isn't going to be a one shot, but it's not going to be very long either, maybe 4 or 5 chapters or less.**

**Anyway, I hope you like this story and please review and let me know what you all think.)**


	2. Chapter 2

Kyle Craig ran his hand through his dark hair. He didn't like having it this long, he normally kept it in a neat buzz cut, but being in ADX Florence, and then on the run in California had forced him to grow it out. It was only about three inches long, but in the sweltering heat of a California afternoon, it felt like he had a poodle tied to his head. He smiled as he pictured the dumb looks that those fools at the CBI must have on their faces. It may have seemed like a nice gift basket, but Cross would know exactly what Kyle was saying.

'_I know where you are, and who the key players are. Be prepared for a long chase._'

'The restaurant coupons were a nice touch', he mused to himself. 'They're going to be so buried in work that they won't be leaving their cubicles.'

He looked over the top of his aviator sunglasses and watched the traffic and flow as he waited for his beer. No one would connect him to his crimes, not as he looked now. He had streaked his black hair with some highlights and had turned his brown eyes into salt and pepper gray with some colored contacts. His impression of a middle aged stoner was impeccable, if he did say so himself, and he was sitting out in the open watching school buses leave the elementary school down the road from the tiny cantina he was lounging in.

The idea of turning a place of learning into his own personal Columbine was intriguing. The Zodiac killer had threatened to kill an entire school bus of children and that had sent Californian's into a right fit. Of course, Kyle was better than that ghost story, so imagine how these perpetually bright and cheery idiots would react!

'Perhaps another time.' He thanked his waitress, a rather fat lady named Trudy, for his beer and took a cooling sip. The slightly bitter liquid was refreshing and gave him a momentary reprise from the heat and allowed him to concentrate on his next move. No one, not Virgil Minelli, not Patrick Jane, not even Alex Cross could anticipate this...

* * *

Lisbon couldn't remember a time that she had ever seen Jane look this focused. He had sequestered himself inside his 'favorite' interrogation room and wasn't coming out. He'd been at...whatever he was doing for the past three hours. She hoped his luck was better than hers. It normally was, but she and the rest of the team had struck out on every lead they had tried. Pamela Cleary was as clean as could be, no one they had talked to could think of any reason that someone would wish harm on her. She was a ghost writer for athletes and paid handsomely for it. Everyone she had written for had nothing but good things to say about her, she hadn't painted anyone in a negative light, not even privately.

There was no debt, no drugs, no nothing. So why did Red John pick her? Determining how a serial killer selected his or her victims was the first thing that law enforcement did. That was the key that started opening doors.

She was pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee and attempting to clear her befuddled mind when she caught Dr. Cross from the corner of her eye. He hadn't moved from the briefing room, but was now stretching out his arms. She caught sight of the stack of police reports. He'd powered through almost every single Red John file. She noticed a pair of unread reports sitting to the left of his chair and recognized one of them by sight. The Jane file was on top of his 'to read' list, ironically, it was the only case report that wasn't nearly worn through with use. Even the Jared Renfew file was showing signs of wear, but the report on Isabella and Mellisa was almost in mint condition. It was the only file that Patrick couldn't bring himself to go through.

The sounds of the FBI returning were a welcome distraction after an afternoon of failure. From their faces, it didn't seem that they'd had any luck either. The gift box had already been processed by forensics but had come up empty. Kyle Craig's fingerprints were all over the box and it's contents, but there weren't any fibers or debris or anything to indicate where he was. All DHL had been able to supply was that the box was been picked up from a drop box on the California Sate University campus. The drop box had turned up nothing either, not even prints. The return address on the box came back to a junk yard in Fresno.

With a quick gulp, she finished the last of her rapidly cooling coffee and returned to her desk in a vain attempt to get her subordinates to do something. The CBI team was taking a break, as they had no luck all day, maybe it was worth while to take a breather, but something felt wrong about sitting around drinking coffee and eating fast food while two psychopaths roamed the state. Cho was still looking over crime scene photos from the Cleary house, trying to divine some answer from nothing. Rigsby and Van Pelt were talking about...something. Theresa didn't care at this point, but was about to open her mouth when her boss walked in and did it for her.

"Hey! We have two of the most violent men since Manson running around scott-free and You're sitting on your asses!" Virgil Minelli barked. He always rode the team harder than the other squads in the CBI, though Lisbon didn't know why. Most bosses weren't happy when their underlings twiddled their thumbs, so she didn't thought much of it.

"Time for another pointless briefing." Cho pointed out dejectedly. "We struck out, the Feds got nothin', hell, Jane probably doesn't even have anything." Theresa just rolled her eyes. While everything he had said was true, there was always the chance that someone had found a piece of evidence that didn't seem to fit, until it was seen through another's eyes. She made to turn and get Jane from his hidey-hole, but was startled when her about face placed her right into the chest of her consultant. For being alone and unsupervised he seemed haggard and worn down. Normally, left to his own devices like that, Jane would have been asleep hours ago, now he looked like a zombie.

"C'mon, we've got afternoon briefing." Theresa Lisbon always considered herself a smart woman, a strong woman, but seeing Jane look befuddled and unsure like this...it shocked her a bit. He was in pain, she knew that. The loss of a wife and daughter would do that to people, but Jane always hid what pain and fear he had behind witty remarks and by playing with those around him. He was extremely bright and so to see him look like a high schooler who didn't know the answer to a math question was quite the change up.

They took their seats around cork boards and white boards with photos of Kyle Craig and any bit of relevant information they had on him. Photos from previous Red John crimes were taped up as well, since there were no descriptions or physical evidence, those were just about the only things that could be put up. Agent Kim started by filling everyone in on what the FBI had gotten from DHL, which, thanks to the speed of gossip, everyone already knew. Van Pelt proceeded to rehash the CBI's probe into Pamela Cleary's background and pointed out that they hadn't found a reason that anyone would want to harm her.

Just as she was taking her seat again, Patrick Jane stood up from his. "I feel I need to apologize." Rigsby snickered at that thought. Jane didn't apologize, it went with the whole 'annoy the suspect into admission' tactic he favored. There were a few more noises of disbelief, but they were soon replaced by more than a few gasps. He was serious. He waited a little bit more while the shock sunk in and the noise died down.

"I need to apologize," He stated once more. "because I haven't been focusing a hundred percent on the Red John case while I have been with the CBI."

Of those that knew Patrick Jane, no one's jaw was closed. Van Pelt and Rigsby were doing wonderful impressions of goldfish, and Cho was both gaping and glaring at the consultant. How was it that Jane hadn't been trying his hardest on these cases? Surely he didn't want Red John to continue to run free? Lisbon took a look at her boss, even Virgil was shocked by this admission. Patrick Jane was one of the best investigators in the CBI, and he wasn't even trying?

"It's not something I've been doing consciously," he continued. "but I've been suffering from tunnel vision. I've been so focused on what I was sure Red John's motivations were, that I missed some very key pieces of information." At least that explanation made sense. Jane had actually been trying too hard, it had happened to each of them before. Getting lost in the moment only to miss something key, some piece of evidence that Patrick usually found for them.

"When Doctor Cross mentioned that Red John enjoyed the suffering of the survivors as much as the victims, I went back through my conversations with everyone involved with this case. In every case, the victim has been a well liked and unlikely candidate to be murdered. They were always well liked by their peers and friends. In my zeal I stopped there, but I was wrong to have." He paused, searching for the words that should have come easily for the consultant. "It's the men. The reason that we haven't been able to find a commonality between women is because their isn't one...except for the men. Each one was unfaithful to their marriage." At first no one really registered that, except for Alex Cross. Years of therapy sessions had gifted him with the ability to register spoken words, even if he was mentally elsewhere. It raised a question in him that no one else thought of for a while. If that was the connection between victims, was Patrick Jane cheating on his wife?

Having spoken his peace, Jane sat back down, eyes fixed on the visiting profiler, waiting, challenging him to ask that very question. From what he knew of Patrick Jane, Alex couldn't really question that statement. Reading body language and other nonverbal means of communication were the most effective way of finding infidelity. Ask any body who has ever been cheated upon. They always talk about the little clues that they should have seen, the coldness, the emotional distance that at the time they brushed off as stress or hormones. In the end, all these fell into place and the picture became crystal clear. Patrick Jane's entire job revolved around piecing these clues together, _in the present_, so that what he said seemed to be supernatural and otherworldly.

"Is that why you closed yourself in that room all day?" Cho questioned, still recovering from Jane's admission.

"No." It seemed like Jane wasn't going to say any more- "I spent it reading over the FBI's notes on Kyle Craig. If he is leaving clues at Red John's crime scenes, then he knows who Red John is, so when I catch him, we can find out who Red John is."

"You what!?" Minelli practically yelled. "You work for me, Jane! I want you on Red John, the FBI have their pinch hitter for Craig, it's unfair that you step up for them as well." Lisbon wasn't sure if she'd ever seen him this angry. Not when he had to attend court and testify, not when he had jury duty, not even when Jane went off and did something really foolish in the midst of an investigation.

Gregory Kim was listening to the exchange, but watching Cross. The Doctor/Detective was working something out in his mind, Kim was sure. He'd never worked with Cross before, but he'd heard great things from those that had. He seemed to settle on whatever he was going to say before rising to his feet.

"If we assume that Mr. Jane is correct, it only helps us marginally. It may explain how he chooses his victims, but it doesn't explain the Jane or Renfrew murders."

"Right, Renfrew was because Red John had to silence someone who might be able to identify him, and...the Jane murders were because he was mad with Patrick insulting him." Cho felt pretty good with himself for piecing together the rather cryptic point that Cross had made.

"That's not what I mean. If we-" Cross had began to clarify himself when he was interrupted by the majority of the CBI.

"Are you saying that Jane was cheating? No way, no way that's possible!"

While his coworkers were adamantly defending him, Patrick slipped from the room, still saddened by his own failure and determined to solve the mystery he was faced with. He returned to 'his' interrogation room and paused to listen to the banter coming from the room he had just left. His coworkers were making it impossible for Dr. Cross to finish his sentence and frankly, Patrick didn't want to be around for a dissection of his marriage. He slipped inside just as the din quieted down enough for the psychologist to speak again.

"No one here believes that Mr. Jane cheated on his wife!" He'd been awake for far too long, and flying from D.C. to Sacramento was beginning to catch up with him. "He said that all of the survivors had been unfaithful to their marriages. I'm sure that if he had meant to say that they were all adulterers, he would have. What Mr. Jane meant, was that each man was unfaithful to the institution of marriage in some way. To most of you, that would mean cheating, but it doesn't have to be so." This calmed the angry California agents fire's.

"To finish my earlier point, if Red John is choosing his victims because of 'failed' relationships, both the Jane and Renfrew murders, _fit_ that profile. Renfrew denied his love, denied that he was with the woman he was accused of murdering. Mr. Jane probably was guilty of no more than having a demanding work life, but it was enough to set off Red John. We still do not know why Red John left his communications, nor do we know why he deviated from his usual patterns. We are only slightly more informed than we were hours ago."

Inside his cavern of self loathing, Patrick could do nothing but stare at his daughter's puzzle, sitting on top of the metal table. He was slouched against the sound proofed wall, his eyes were glazed over as he used his considerable brain power to try and wrap around the puzzle that was his current situation. Red John was still free. He had made a promise, on the memories of his wife and daughter, that he would find Red John and end him in the most befitting way. And yet, instead of focusing on that, he was fixating on Kyle Craig, someone he had never met, never seen the Mastermind's own brand of evil, and yet he had become the most important piece in this mystery. If Jane could find Craig, he would get Red John's identity and that would be checkmate.

* * *

Once the thoroughly pointless afternoon briefing had ended, both agencies were no closer to a solution than they were before, Virgil Minelli returned to his rather spacious office more pissed than he had been since he found the Mastermind's card in _**his**_ crime scene! Patrick Jane was working another case! Where did that idiot get off? Well, it was only temporary. Minelli had to disguise his smirk by lowering his head and pretending to read some stupid intradepartmental memo. The next time that he struck, Jane would be right back where he belonged, under Red John's thumb.

* * *

The assembled investigators and agents dispersed to their desks, some took the opportunity to grab some food, others sleep. Alex Cross did neither. The nearly six hour flight from Reagan International was beginning to catch up with him, but there was too much work to be done. The Dragon slayer was on the case again! He began to think over Kyle Craig's motives for entering into this game. The most obvious answer was that it drew him away from his family. It was Alex's largest hang up when he was approached and asked to do this for the Bureau. Kyle wanted him dead, but he wanted him to suffer more. Everyone who knew him, knew that the fastest way into Alex Cross's life was through his family. Nana Mama, his grandmother who had raised him since his parents had died in his youth. She wasn't a spring chicken anymore, but woe to the person that tried to tell her that..

His daughter Jannie was looking more like her mother with every passing day. She was just entering seventh grade, but she acted far more like a college student, always thinking of the big picture and putting others before herself. His oldest son, Damon was off at a private school in Massachusetts, which only made his worry grow, that he wasn't at home where Alex could protect them. Alex Jr. was the proverbial bundle of joy in the household. While Damon and Jannie had both been handfuls in their youth, Ali, as they had taken to calling him, was both more energetic and calming at the same time.

It was this love for his family that allowed him to glimpse inside Patrick Jane's mind better than anyone before. He couldn't help but think about his late wife; Maria had been murdered and for the longest time, he couldn't figure out why or who. Jannie hadn't even been a year old at the time, and Damon only had the briefest of memories, and for over a decade, Alex had been searching, fruitlessly for answers. Then he had caught a break, or so it had seemed. A former mafia hitman had crossed the wrong people and shown back up on police radar. All the evidence began to point at this assassin, he had been the one that shot his beloved Maria. In all the flashbacks and nightmares he had relived, he couldn't remember the sound of the gunshot. All he ever remembered was the weight of her dying body as he ran through the streets towards the nearest hospital. She'd died in his arms, just as he had lay her on a gurney.

In the end, Michael Sullivan was dead and Alex was injured. Perhaps worse of all, Alex couldn't tell if it had been his bullet that had ended Sullivan's life or not. How he had wanted to be the _only_ one to avenge his wife, and he couldn't even claim that. It had been weeks later when Alex's lifelong friend, John Sampson had confessed that Sullivan wasn't the shooter that had robbed Alex of his beautiful wife. Sampson and another friend of Alex's had hunted down the sniper, an accomplice of Sullivan's, and killed him. Even the slight victory that Alex had felt at the end of the case was diminished a bit more.

He didn't need his Doctorate in psychology, nor the decades of experience he had gained over the years from profiling and counseling to see that Patrick Jane was in the same boat he had been. Jane wanted Red John dead, and would go through any means to do it. While Alex had his children and Grandmother, Jane was left alone in the world without his family. That's the only reason that Alex seemed so well adjusted in comparison. In reality, the pain never really left, there would always be a gaping hole in his life that his wife had occupied and while his family had kept that emptiness from swallowing him completely, that missing piece never got smaller, it never got filled in. It just never got any bigger, and as time wore on, he thought about it less and less.

Jane had nothing to help him in this regard. There were records of him entering a psychiatric ward almost immediately after his wife and daughter's passing. Since he had entered voluntarily, when he said he was cured, he was allowed to leave and shortly after he had joined the CBI. Perhaps the constant work had helped to hold Patrick together. He was given the opportunity, time and time again, to prove that he was smarter than whatever new murderer the CBI investigated. Over time his confidence would have grown back and maybe even approached his previous level.

And then Red John would strike. And Patrick would be brought back to rock bottom in the most soul crushing fashion imaginable. It was one thing to desire revenge and never be given the chance to cash in on it. It was another to want it so badly that you sold your soul and time and time again be proven inferior. Red John had done a masterful job of ruining and controlling Jane's life, and now Kyle Craig was going to do the same thing.

He took off his tie and loosened the collar of his shirt. He would have headed off to a hotel for some sleep by now, but knowing Kyle Craig like he did, Alex knew that it would be useless to leave now. Kyle's response would be swift and bloody.

* * *

Virgil crept around the back of his next victim's home. Janice Eppstein was a brunette who had gone bottle blond just a month ago. The twenty nine year old dental assistant was naive enough to believe that it was her appearance that was causing her Realtor husband's lack of interest. Donald had been sleeping with the CPA from the office next to his for nearly as long as their marriage. He had actually attempted to call it off, but his women on the side had blackmailed him into staying. For nothing more than cheap sex. She didn't demand money, or jewelry, just sex. What a stuck up bastard!

Yes, people like Donald Eppstein had to be taught that there were consequences when you broke an oath as sacred as a wedding vow. And Red John was the master at handing out that punishment. It made him shudder a bit at how fast Cross was catching up to his trail. The women were a nice release, but the men's misery were what really got Virgil off.

It had all started with his mother. A nicer woman you could not find, she taught elementary school and then volunteered with the PTA and Girl Scouts and still managed to support the growing Virgil with all the love and attention he could want. One night, when he was nine, he had discovered that his father was 'stepping out' on his beloved mom, with the good for nothing neighbor woman. The man wasn't around enough as it was, working as a warehouse security guard on the night shift, and this latest transgression against his sacred vow made young Virgil crack. He had confronted his father, for he never called him dad, and threatened then and there to go to his mother and expose the fraud for what he was. He had his back to the man he had the misfortune of sharing a surname with, when his beautiful world was cracked.

His mother was sick. No, that was an understatement. She had been sick when her lymphoma had been diagnosed, almost a year ago. Now, she was living on borrowed time and every day she grew just a little bit weaker. His father argued that telling her would crush what life she was clinging to right from her body...and Virgil believed him. For the next two years, his mother fought. Through all the chemo, and all the vomiting and all the pain filled moaning, Virgil couldn't bring himself to tell her. He knew that the affair continued, knew that the man he was forced to call father was still cheating on the closest thing to an angel on earth. It wasn't until the very end that he told her. The doctors had given her only another day, at most, before the cancer would become too much. So he told her.

And she had responded, "I know."

He stayed at her side until she finally fell silent and passed on. Virgil didn't believe in heaven or hell, but if there was anyone on this dirty little rock that deserved to be free of pain and given all the pleasures an afterlife had to offer, it was his mom. Throughout the funeral his mind was contemplating the past few years. He had covered for his bastard father, just to spare his wonderful mother any excess pain. And yet the damage had been done. She had known, she knew he wasn't faithful and despite Virgil's hope that by keeping this secret she would be better off, it hadn't helped. As the first shovelful of earth buried his mother, he began to plan.

For seven years he planned and plotted. Schemed and devised. On his eighteenth birthday, Virgil gave himself the best gift ever. He murdered his father. It had been very poetic, in an insane way. The old man had shown up at the neighbor's house, hoping for a romp before dinner, before he had to see his son again, but instead of his lover, he found her dead body. It wasn't in his now patented signature, but he had worked her over enough that a trained detective would be able to see the similarities.

The shock of his father's face when he buried the kitchen knife his mother had favored into his back was priceless. Polaroid moment indeed!

Now, as he broke into Janice's home, the nostalgia faded and the rush of the present overtook him. He had the stun gun in his right hand and his trusty knife in a fanny pack attached to his waist. The lights were off in every room except the master bedroom. The floor didn't make a sound as he tread over it, silently approaching the light like a moth drawn to a flame. He reached out and his gloved hand touched the shiny brass knob. It gave way with out a sound and the door swung open just a bit. Only as much as he allowed it. He couldn't hear anything over the sounds of Jay Leno, but he knew that hubby wasn't home yet. He shifted his weight ever so carefully, waiting for the perfect moment to burst through the door. Leno's grating laugh gave way to commercials, first a stupid McDonald's ad, then an equally stupid Miller Light spot. When the Ford pick up commercial came on, he knew it was time. His weight carried him through the door, as his legs and all the muscles in his body seemed to uncoil as he pounced....

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

The combined crime solving forces of the CBI and FBI began to comb their way through the Eppstein crime scene. Everyone was using all of their skills to try and find any clue that would help in locating the perpetrator of this grizzly murder. Janice lay on the bed, stabbed over thirty times and bearing the distinctive burns from a stun gun. Above her body was the classic smiley face, drawn with the middle three fingers of the right hand in a clockwise direction. Everything was textbook Red John, except for one thing. The one thing that cried out, 'I did this, not Red John!'

Donald Eppstein was strung up to the ceiling, not unlike Jesus on the crucifix, and gutted. Red John would never kill the one he wanted to emotionally feed off of. Kyle Craig had done this, taken something as personal as Red John's MO and twisted it.

Alex Cross was taking in the entirety of the scene, the murdered husband and wife, the carefulness that Kyle had taken in copying Red John's signature. Patrick Jane was taking in the minutia. The angle of the sheets, the blinds, what almost everyone else would overlook, he would find. He knew this wasn't Red John and while he didn't believe that the Mastermind could live up to his own personal devil, so far, there hadn't been much for him to find.

But then he saw it. Just like his greeting card, this was right out in the open. A tape recorder lay on the top of the dresser. For a couple as technologically savvy as the Eppsteins, this seemed pretty anachronistic. He pressed the play button but didn't hear anything. After a couple of seconds, the tape stopped and he realized that it needed to be rewound. Jane pressed rewind, knowing that if Minelli were here, he would be yelling at the consultant for not wearing gloves or letting the forensic techs know that he found something. He felt his pulse begin to rise as the whirring tape snapped to a stop. He pressed play, feeling the presence of Dr. Cross and Lisbon behind him.

"Mr. Jane, it's nice to make your acquaintance. What do you think of my introduction?" Kyle Craig's voice emanated from the single speaker on the recorder. After his two sentences, his deep voice dissolved into an evil laugh fit for a motion picture.

Jane almost threw the recorder to the ground, only at the last minute remembering that it was evidence and instead lay it down where he had found it and walked outside in search of fresh air and room to think. Lisbon turned to watch Patrick's retreating back as he disappeared around the corner. She turned to Doctor Cross with fire in her eyes.

"I thought you said that Craig wanted you, so why did he address that to Jane?" She demanded, getting right up in the psychologist's personal space. His response wasn't coming as fast as she wanted, and she was going to say something when he finally spoke up.

"Red John is a man who takes pleasure in controlling everything around him. Kyle is out to prove that he's smarter, that he's the bigger threat...Kyle is taking control of everything that Red John thought he was in charge of. Mr. Jane had to rewind the tape, Kyle would never leave a message at the end...Red John was here before we were. Janice was to be his next victim, but Kyle beat him to it. He's taking control of Red John's victims, his means of gratification...and now the one man who had given everything to hunt him down. Patrick is no longer Red John's man...he's Kyle's."

* * *

**(A/N: Here is chapter two! I want to thank both of my reviewers, lgmtreader and kathiann. Without your wonderful reviews, I probably wouldn't have written this. Thank you to everyone that has read this so far, I know that's not a lot of you, but hopefully more and more people will read this. **

**As always, please review, if you're reading my note, I would hope that you read the story. Have a good weekend!)**


	3. Chapter 3

The walls were falling all around him. The facades and defenses he had constructed, the supports and outlets he had practiced and mastered over years were failing him. Virgil Minelli was at a loss. Kyle Craig was taking what he had worked so hard at, and nothing Virgil seemed to do was working. He had such a good thing going, by hiring Patrick Jane and keeping him under his thumb, the man known as Red John was able to play with his 'nemesis' as often as he wanted.

In truth, Patrick was small potatoes. The fake psychic wasn't good enough to catch Virgil, and the psychopath loved to wave that little fact in his consultant's face. No one had come close to ever catching him, until Kyle Craig had stepped onto the scene. Virgil knew of Craig, who in law enforcement didn't? Kyle was a Senior Special Agent in the FBI, on the fast track for much higher positions, maybe even the Director's chair if you believed some of the water cooler talk. Except that Kyle had a nasty little secret. He was one of the bloodiest serial killers in the US,. According the testimony he himself had given at his own trail, he had been killing for his entire adult life, starting with his own brother. He had moved on to various towns and cities in the US, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., Alexandria and a host of others.

Craig had been sentenced to something like twenty-six life sentences, to be served consecutively, Virgil was too angry to think straight at this point. Craig had been locked away in ADX Florence, the federal penitentiary where the most violent and vicious murderers and criminals were spirited away to. Timothy McVeigh had been there, as was Terry Nichols. Ted 'The Unabomber' Kaczynski had been there since his imprisonment as well as Eric Robert Rudolph, the man who bombed abortion clinics as well as Olympic Park in Atlanta. There were terrorists, drug traffickers and even Robert Hanssen, the spy and traitor against the United States. These people were watched like hawks and kept locked down tighter than almost any other prison in the U.S. 23 hours of every day was spent in isolation, in a 7x12 foot cell and yet, Kyle Craig had escaped. He had used his own Lawyer to break out of the most secure prison in the nation.

He was not one to be underestimated, and yet that was exactly the position Virgil Minelli found himself in. When he had gone to the home of Janice Eppstein, he had intended to kill her; he had _wanted_ to kill her. He had done so fourteen times before, and Janice was to have been lovely number fifteen. But Kyle Craig had somehow beaten him to the punch. Not only had he murdered Janice, Craig had meticulously copied Virgil's own MO, from the stun gun to the smiley face, it was all his! But then that bastard had gone and gutted Donald Eppstein, nearly cleaving the man in half. Virgil couldn't even fake his emotions after he found the scene. So when the call went out the next morning for the CBI to investigate, he just sent Lisbon's team on and stayed in his office to steep in his own anger.

And now Virgil felt all his walls crumbling. He had always lived his life knowing that he was different from normal people, but in knowing that, and by doing all the things he had, he remained in control of himself. He lived for the moments where his dominion and power were absolute, the times were life and death were in his hands, those had kept him from turning into some kind of garden variety lunatic. Now, without that release, even just this one time, he felt himself drifting further out into the sea of insanity. Even for someone with no conscience, no apathy or empathy, it was unsettling to feel this way.

'Perhaps this was how normal people felt.' he mused.

The bottom line was that he needed to gather himself together and plan his next move. Kyle Craig thought that he was in charge, but Red John hadn't begun to fight yet.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Patrick Jane was still at the Eppstein house, combing over everything he could. He needed to find something to help him hunt down the Mastermind. He was fixated on finding Kyle Craig because if he did, Craig would lead to Red John. Red John was Patrick's problem to deal with, he knew that, he'd always known that. He continued to pace the house, picking up seemingly random objects and placing them back down. He felt items, he mapped the items...he may have even tasted one or two of the items around the Eppstein house. Mentally, Patrick ran through the events from the previous night. Janice is at home, waiting for her husband to return, Kyle Craig somehow enters the house and kills her in the same manner as Red John and then waits for the husband. Donald returns home from work or where-ever he was, and Kyle subdues him before tying him up and almost cutting the poor man in half.

While the CBI and FBI techs were still combing the bedroom for evidence, Patrick was contaminating the kitchen by sitting down and having a cup of tea. It was a pity that there wasn't a lemon, but Patrick drank on anyway. Something about the scene bothered him, but he could only determine that it had to do with the way that Janet died, not exactly what was irking him. Again, he ran through the scenario he had in his head.

1. Kyle enters house and uses a stun gun to subdue Janice.

2. Kyle murders her in the exact same manner as Red John.

3. Waits for Donald to return home.

4. Kills Donald.

5. Leaves.

He continued to sip at his tea, the hot fragrant liquid usually helped him to calm down and approach things with his usual cool and calm. But right now, it wasn't helping as much as he would have liked. No great epiphany was spring forth from his mind, no revelation of astronomical importance. Just the feeling that something was off and that he shouldn't be sitting in the kitchen drinking tea. He finished his cup and exhaled deeply. Whatever was the matter, it wasn't going to be rectified by sitting down.

As Patrick was cleaning his dish, his gaze was caught by the flight of a bird in the Eppstein's back yard. A Ruby Throated Hummingbird, if he wasn't mistaken. Despite the bird's vibrant color and how it flitted and fluttered about, Jane's vision was drawn to the unfinished brown stone walk way leading to the swimming pool. Beyond that was a six foot tall hedgerow that served as the boundary of the Eppstein's land.

He stepped out the back door and walked in the grass, looking at the sand between the stones. It was pocked and dotted with craters from the sprinkler system, but where the stone hadn't been placed yet, the sand was smooth and unblemished. Kyle had been back here and in all probability, this was how he had gotten into the house. Patrick Jane rarely needed more than one clue to find a guilty suspect, and he had just found it.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Alex Cross was still looking around the bedroom, trying to make sense of Kyle actions. Copying Red John's signature, taunting Patrick Jane, it was textbook Kyle. 'Anything you can do, I can do better.' The medical examiner had just arrived to pronounce on the bodies and take them back to the morgue and Alex still felt that Kyle had left something else. It wasn't based on any evidence, just a feeling deep in the back of the Doctor-Detective's mind. There was something else...it was too easy, too simple for Kyle.

It didn't make sense to him. Kyle, was the kind of person who always thought two steps ahead of everyone else. Back when the Mastermind had first appeared on Alex's radar, he was just a mysterious figurehead who planned and financed some of the most high profile and daring bank robberies in the Virginia/DC area. The crews he used were brutal and without mercy. They all started with the abduction or capture of the Bank manager's family. If the bank didn't follow directions exactly, the family died. To make things more difficult, both the robbers and bank staff were on strict time schedules. If the bank was late, even by a second, the hostages died. If the robbers were late, they died.

And to think, Kyle didn't even care about the money! He did all of this, just so he could murder the crew he hired himself and then repeat the process. He was manipulative, highly intelligent and without mercy or compassion. So why were these murders seemingly so straight forward?

He killed these people to disrupt Red John and Patrick Jane, but was that really it? Was there another reason? If he was correct, than Red John had intended to kill Janice last night but was beaten to the punch. How had he managed to do it? To kill two people, avoid any witnesses and avoid another predator like himself?

So many questions ran through Alex's mind and not enough answers came back. In the who, what, when, where and why of murder, the who was normally the difficult part. Kyle had thrown everything on it's head. There wasn't even a sign of the weapon that Kyle used which was unusual. Kyle had never shown an attachment to a particular MO before. He'd stabbed, shot and strangled his victims with no pattern or order.

The ME who was a soft spoken black women in her late thirties, pronounced that Janice had died between eight and ten PM the night prior. A moment later, her assistants who had to be careful as they lowered Donald's body into his own body bag, announced that his liver temperature placed his time of death in the same time range.

The running theory had been that Kyle had killed Janice first and waited for Donald to come back home. For them to have died in the same two hour time window didn't necessarily disprove that, but it gave rise to a new theory in Alex's mind.

"Has anyone inspected the locks to see if they were picked?" He asked, hoping that the forensic unit's hadn't been sitting around doing nothing.

One of the investigators grabbed his note pad and flipped back a few pages. "No obvious signs of forced entry on the front, back or garage doors..." He turned the page over and continued on. "Endoscopy was surprisingly helpful, brand new locks on the front and back doors, they only showed key insertion and the garage door was inconclusive, but it doesn't look like it was picked."

Alex felt some of the CBI watching him as his theory became more and more concrete. He flipped through his own notes, not just this crime scene, but the other Red John murders as well, when he lifted his head he had a look of supreme confidence about him.

"It's a ruse. Misdirection. Kyle wanted us to think that he copied Red John perfectly, but he didn't. Red John picks locks to gain entrance to his victim's houses, then stuns and murders the women. Kyle somehow got in without picking a lock, so they either let him in or he ambushed them and got in without a fight. He subdues both of them and kills Donald before Janice. It's exactly the opposite of Red John...it's the exact opposite of Red John."

He paused as the gears began to spin at full speed. Kyle was the opposite of Red John. Kyle was a hunter, he got satisfaction through killing, through domination. Red John gained most of his satisfaction through the misery and suffering he caused, not the physical violence. Red John didn't taunt, didn't flaunt himself, Kyle wanted to plaster his deeds all over the news.

"Where's Jane?" The visiting Detective asked, looking around the room and quickly moving into the hallway.

"Anyone seen Jane?" Lisbon called to the men standing by the front door. They shook their head in the negative.

"Van Pelt, Cho, anything?" Theresa assumed that Patrick was off doing some thing or another that she would have to explain to Minelli later on. But when both her agents reported that he wasn't in the house, she felt sweat begin to form on the back of her neck sending a chill down her spine.

She headed towards the back of the house, and noticed the clean cup sitting in the kitchen sink. Jane and his damn tea habit. Just outside the window over the sink she spotted the depressions in the grass the Jane had left.

"He's outside." She yelled, at least she knew that he was just outside the house and not taking a nap on the couch or something equally ridiculous. It was to her great surprise when Dr. Cross sprinted past her and out the back door.

"Jane! Mr. Jane, are you out here?" He yelled, hand on his gun, head swiveling around before he sprinted off towards the pool. For a second, Lisbon didn't move, but then she ran out back and followed Dr. Cross towards the pool. She saw Patrick searching along the hedgerow on the opposite side of the pool. He must have heard the yelling, because he turned around and saw the two just outside of the house. He just smiled and waved at them, before continuing on with his search.

Cross ran off like a gun shot, his long legs covered nearly six feet a stride and within a few seconds he was at the pool side, about fort-five meters from the edge of the Eppstein's property. From Jane's body language, he had just found whatever it was he was looking for. In the five seconds that it took Jane to reach up and grab the hidden door handle, Cross had covered the rest of the ground between him and the consultant. The psychologist launched himself at Jane and tackled him to the ground, just as Patrick had opened a previously hidden door. They tumbled a good yard and a half before they stopped rolling. Patrick sat up, murder written on his face, but whatever argument he was going to make died on his lips when there was an explosion from the exact spot he had been standing.

"Kyle is the opposite of Red John." Cross repeated between panting breaths. "Red John wants you alive, so Kyle wants you dead."

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Kyle couldn't help but laugh as he read the newspaper the next day. The CBI had released the fact that he was responsible for the Eppstein murders, along with the head line:

**EXPLOSION KILLS CONSULTANT IN DOUBLE HOMICIDE**.

Underneath was a photo of Virgil Minelli in the midst of his press conference, Gregory Kim was in the background along with Alex Cross. Of all the people in the photo, only the anger on Alex's face was genuine. Minelli couldn't fake grief any better than a dog fakes the English language. Kim, who Kyle only knew by reputation from his time with the Bureau, was looking constipated instead of contemplative. Patrick Jane was as alive as Kyle was, this was supposed to fool him into getting over confident. If Kyle had wanted Patrick dead he would have hidden behind that door, instead of leaving a bomb that he had cobbled together from parts he found at the Home Depot and around the house he was occupying. Had Patrick Jane died, all the better, but nothing that Kyle had planned required the consultant's death. Eventually Jane would die, along with Alex Cross and Virgil Minelli. But for now, Kyle returned to the most pressing thing on his plate at the moment.

"Actual location of the Battle of Bunker Hill...ten letters"

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Patrick was bored. And as Theresa Lisbon will testify, a bored Patrick was a infuriating Patrick. There was nothing he wouldn't do to relieve the boredom, and that should have been enough reason to tie him to a bed and sedate him. Thankfully for her, Jane was Alex Cross's problem for the time being. Since he was supposed to be dead, Patrick couldn't very well return home, now could he? Nor could he be spotted hanging around the CBI offices, so the good Doctor had agreed to share his hotel room with the deceased consultant.

Patrick had flipped through the thirty or so channels that the hotel offered and decided that nothing good was one, so he did the only other thing available to him at the moment, he watched Alex Cross work. The psychologist was making notes and observations in a notebook, one of four that he had brought, Jane noticed. Cross may have been older than Patrick, but there was a certain quality about him that reminded him of Mohammad Ali, not just in psychical appearance, though both were imposing, but the sense of confidence that Cross carried with him.

Patrick knew he had been dubbed 'The Dragon Slayer' due to his outstanding record with high profile cases. Cross was the heavy hitter that DC Metro brought in whenever they ran into the worst of the worst...and that seemed to happen with some regularity. Patrick was never much of a believer in local law enforcement. Sure, if you needed speeding tickets handed out, the Sacramento PD were as good as the highway patrol, but anything more serious than a purse snatching and they were too overworked and too few to make an impact.

Cross was jolted from his work by the alarm on his cell phone going off. 5:00pm Patrick noted. Alex got up from his work and picked up the phone. Twelve times he pressed the keys, twice to get an outside long distance call started, and then ten for the zip code and phone number. Cross was calling home. Patrick found himself intrigued. This was the perfect opportunity to gather some information on the Doctor and his family.

"Very funny Nana."

That must have been his grandmother, Nana Mama, as Cross called her.

"I'm fine, a bit jet lagged, but none the worse for wear." He paused as his mother figure talked on.

"No, I haven't called her, I'm sure she's plenty busy and so am I right now...oh, you heard about that. No, no, I' m fine, a bunch of the people are still shaken up, but we all know it's part of the job. Yes, it's very tragic. No, no one else was hurt."

Apparently news of Patrick's demise had reached the east coast.

"Yes, of course...Put her on...or Ali, whichever one you can wrangle first...Hey bud, how are you? That's great! What did you see? Wow! That big?! Well I saw a roadrunner today. Yup, and he ran off faster than the car we were driving. Yeah, just like on TV."

The emotions that Cross exuded as the conversation went on fascinated Patrick. With his grandmother he was guarded and nervous. She must have been a very strict woman to intimidate the Dragon Slayer across a phone line. When he talked with his son he was genuinely happy and the worries and pressures of the day seemed to melt off his face. When his daughter Janie was put on, the tone changed again, this time he was bluntly honest but with enough warmth in his voice to relay the unspoken message that everything was OK and that she shouldn't worry about him.

It wasn't until six pm Pacific time that he ended his call home, much more relaxed than he had been just an hour ago. In spite of himself Patrick found himself butting in and opening his mouth.

"They mean a lot to you, don't they?" It was an unnecessary question, Cross's demeanor and the tone in which he spoke to his family had spoken volumes to the fake psychic.

"They mean everything to me." Was the short reply from the visiting detective. "I don't know what I'd do without them. Every time I have to leave them on one of these assignments I always wonder if it'll be the last time I see them."

It suddenly struck Patrick that he never had that worry. Every time he had gone out to help the police, or on one of his cross country tours, he had always returned home to Izzy and Melissa. He didn't realize what a gift that feeling truly was until it was too late.

"So why did you come out here? You said it yourself, Kyle Craig wants to hurt you, most likely through your family, so why leave them and come across the country. How did you know that Kyle didn't leave that note just to get you away from your house? Aren't you worried about them?"

"Every minute of every day I'm away from them." Cross had a sad smile on his face as he spoke. "Since Damon's gone away to school it's a feeling that I've been unable to shake. But as strange as it sounds, right now, they're safest with me here. While I'm here, Kyle won't leave the state."

"What about Red John?" Patrick probed. "Since Kyle is trying to get to me, what if Red John tries to turn the tables and goes after your family?" It was a valid question and a rational fear.

"While it's possible, but my family has the best protection available."

Patrick just raised an eyebrow. What protection was good enough to protect someone from Red John or Kyle Craig if they were determined?

Cross smiled as he answered. "So long as Kyle lives, he won't let anyone have the pleasure of killing me or my family."

Patrick took the joke in stride, but fell silent as Cross resumed his work. He had a family he could go home to if everything went well, Cross had his support system. But even with the best possible outcome for Patrick, (Red John's head on a stick) there wouldn't be anyone to welcome him with open arms.

"Well don't expect Craig to be your guard dog for much longer. If I catch him, I'll make him give me Red John's identity. You can have what ever's left over."

Cross looked up, the venom coming from Patrick Jane was more than he had imagined the man capable of. It reminded him so much of himself and of one other.

"I once knew a man like you."

"Oh?"

"His fiancée was murdered and he swore revenge. He was a promising doctor, but gave it all up because he couldn't stand the memory of the life he had with her. He joined the FBI and spent his entire tenure with the man down. In the end he killed the one responsible, but it cost him."

"Cost him what, his sanity, or did die in the process, because I assure you that I won't do either." Patrick huffed.

"You've never heard of Thomas Pierce have you?" Alex asks. "I suppose that's something they might want to keep quiet." Seeing Patrick's eyes blazing back at him Alex continued.

"Thomas Pierce was hunting a serial killer known as Mr. Smith. At first Smith was local, hunting around Boston and the like, but then around the same time that Thomas joined up, he skipped the pond and went to Europe. England, France, Germany. Everywhere he went he left bags of body parts. Smith vivisected his victims, living autopsy. Pierce became obsessed with Smith, and the opposite was true. Before every body drop, Smith would send Pierce an email letting him know where to go, where to find the next body. Thomas blamed himself for all the deaths that Smith committed and it just drove him farther and faster than before.

In the end it turned out to all be a sham. Pierce **_was_** Smith. He had come home and found his fiancée in bed with another man and killed her. Then he murdered twenty one other people. He had a pattern, we just didn't see it until the end. There was one final person that Pierce wanted to kill, the man who Isabella had the affair with. But we stopped him before he could do that."

"So you stopped him and he went loony, so what?" Patrick was growing tired of this, nothing in it related to him. He certainly wasn't a serial killer, nor was he insane.

"No. All we did was stop plan A. He moved right on to B. He holed himself up in the apartment that he was going to be sharing with his wife, and finished his plan. You see, he used the letters in the names of his victims to spell out a confession.

I-M-U-R-D-E-R-E-D-I-S-A-B-E-L-L-A-C-A-L-A-I-S.

He had killed twenty two people and all he had to do was find an S and he would be done. I had been invited in on the case when the FBI began to suspect that Pierce was crooked and so I was called in to help try and negotiate him out. When we finally got inside the apartment, Pierce was nearly done with his plan. He had sliced open his own chest and was conducting his own autopsy. Pierce made Mr. Smith the final victim."

"And this has what to do with me, exactly?" Patrick's response wasn't as firm as he wanted it to be.

"You mean besides the fact that his fiancé's name was Isabella and that he vowed to find the person who murdered her and kill them? What about the fact that both threw away lucritive careers becuase you couldn't continue them after the murder of their loved one? Or the fact that both of you had nothing left afterwards to help you heal. You both threw yourselves into police work and it destroyed Pierce in the end."

Jane flinched. It was pretty disturbing

"The fact that you haven't turned into Pierce is good, but I've heard about your plans for Red John and unlike Pierce, if you kill the one who is responsible for your family's death, you'll still be alive and have to deal with those emotions."

Alex saw something in Patrick change. It wasn't a total change of heart, but at least now he was thinking.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**(A/N: A big thank you to everyone who has read this story, and an even bigger thanks to those who reviewed. Hopefully you'll like this chapter, so please, let me know what you think. If anyone has any ideas on ways to get more people to read this, I'd love to hear about them. I will be lowering the rating to T, so hopefully that will help, but new ideas are always appreciated.)**


	4. Chapter 4

Alex Cross waited for the bar keeper to recognize him. All he wanted were a couple of beers, and maybe a minute to think about the man he had lodging in his room. He knew that Patrick Jane wasn't fond of him, heck, he down right wrote off the psychologist as a non entity, but now...Patrick was a man very much trapped in time and space. Despite the three years that had passed since his wife and daughter's murders, Patrick was still stuck in the night he came home and found their bodies. Post Traumatic Stress mixed with a good dose of depression and equal parts guilt and survivor's remorse, all rolled into one man.

Patrick blamed himself for their deaths and vowed revenge to appease his own mind, to quiet the ghosts that lived only in his head. Individually, these disorders were crippling, and yet Patrick was able to lead an outwardly normal life, even with disorder compounding mental disease. But then again, so had Thomas Pierce. No matter how different the two were, they had their similarities. Mr. Jane's saving grace was that he had yet to experience murder. Up until the moment when Thomas Pierce killed Isabella, and became Mr. Smith, there were no differences between the charismatic, rising doctor, and the fractured man who sat pondering in Alex's room. But Mr. Smith had taken human life and come to need it.

He wasn't someone like Kyle Craig, who lived to hunt and experience that rush of adrenaline. Thomas Pierce killed to feel emotions. He regretted killing his fiancée, and so emotionally, he numbed himself to cope. It worked, and then again it failed. Pierce successfully buried the feeling of anger that lead to Isabella's death, and he crushed his sense of guilt. He locked away his emotions to avoid confronting the reality he had created and so successfully evaded police suspicion in the grizzly murder he had created. It was that inability to confront his reality that lead to the Mr. Smith persona rising to the surface. Thomas Pierce was human, in that he was born with innate emotions and needed a way to cope and confront those feelings. Mr. Smith was alien in comparison, born from a numb psyche, Mr. Smith needed to cause pain in order to feel the barest sting of remorse, to feel anything.

That very much described Patrick Jane currently. From the records he had received on the consultant, when Patrick had been a guest of the psych ward, he had been mostly catatonic. He rarely spoke, ate very little and would very rarely leave his bed. Most of what he spoke had been mumbled in his nightmares, no, don't, I'm sorry; that kind of thing. And then, almost out of the blue, he's coherent and cooperative. He talks to his doctors and begins to express a desire to work for who ever can get him into the Red John scene. To the layman, it might seem as if Jane were a multiple personality, but his actions from before and after were nearly identical. He didn't suddenly become a mass murderer like Pierce, he didn't so much as change where he ate. Patrick Jane is stuck back in 2005, until his mind resolves itself to face the music.

Finally, after seemingly waiting forever, Alex placed an order for two beers and had two frosted bottles forced into his hands. He dropped a ten on the counter and headed back to the room and Patrick. It wouldn't due to leave the man he was supposed to be guarding to have a drink, now would it.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

While Alex Cross and Patrick Jane were sipping beer and not talking to each other, Kyle Craig and Virgil Minelli were putting the finishing touches on their next works. Virgil's motives were different than when he normally did this, and it felt strange to him. The Mastermind had gotten into Red John's head and this was the only way that Virgil could see to kick him out. Was it different? Not so much. Was it fulfilling? Not entirely. Would Kyle see it coming? Not a chance. Virgil looked down and a smile graced his lips for the first time since he had been beaten to the Eppstein house. He had to complete staging the scene.

While Virgil was celebrating his freedom, Kyle was basking in his own glory. After scrutinizing plan after plan, Kyle had decided that the best way to get back to the top was to not be associated with his crime. Ever since his escape from prison, Kyle had only had to worry about hiding his identity, not his crimes. It was freeing, before, he had to keep his body count hidden, so that the hunt could continue uninterrupted. Those that got too close, he killed, all except for Alex Cross, but it hardly mattered now. Now, he could be as brazen as he wanted. He no longer had to disguise his murders by less satisfactory means, poison, bullets. These were neat tricks, but for Kyle, if he wasn't using his hands, it wasn't as gratifying. But now it would pay to delay his gratification, just a little bit.

This...this was a stroke of genius if he did say so himself. Nothing he had ever done could compare, hell, nothing in history could compare! He was the Rube Goldberg of mayhem and chaos! He finished placing the final pieces of evidence in his masterpiece of a canvas and stepped back to admire it. Five bodies lay riddled with bullets, dead at the Mastermind's feet. It was a simple matter to strike a match and light a fuse. History had born witness to that plenty of times, but this...only Kyle was capable of this.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

The first call came to Dr. Cross's cellphone at just after 11 pm. He had been hoping to get a full night's sleep, but it just wasn't in the cards tonight.

"Cross." He recognized the number as belonging to the CBI. From the second bed, Patrick watched the worn face of the dragon slayer set in determination before paling in distress. Sorrow and regret flashed quickly, before they were covered over by a steely resolve that Patrick hadn't seen so intensely before. Whatever the news was, it had shaken Cross's foundation before solidifying it even more. Cross hung up and paused for a beat, before reaching for his Glock.

"Red John's killed again." Before he could pull his on-loan FBI jacket on, Patrick was up and changing clothes along with the detective. The blond usually had a predisposition for expensive three piece suits and would have stuck out like a sore thumb in comparison to the FBI and CBI forensic techs and less well dressed investigators. But with Jane in blue jeans and a long sleeved black T-shirt, all he needed was something to cover his hair and he could pass for an undercover cop very easily.

Alex handed him a knit beanie with deep brown and green colors. It was going to be a gift for Damon, but his son hadn't liked getting clothing as gifts since he had turned four, and so this was just an idea. Having Patrick on the scene would be more helpful than some token offering to his son.

"Where?" Patrick was on edge. This was another chance to get to Red John, maybe his only chance if Cross kept shaking things up. If Patrick wanted to capture Red John, this may in all reality be his final shot at exacting any meaningful form of revenge. Something was bothering Cross, if the lack of an answer was any indication and Patrick readied himself for a silent car ride when he got his answer.

"Virgil Minelli's house. He killed Antonia Minelli and no one knows where Virgil is."

"Are you sure?" Patrick was shocked. Red John had never taunted the police, never involved them personally before. Now he goes and kills his boss's wife? It could be a copy cat, or maybe even Kyle again.

"No, which is exactly why I'm not insisting you stay here while I check it out. There isn't any reason not to believe it's not genuine though. He's been out shined by Kyle for a while now, and it's got to be killing him inside."

Silently the two left for their next crime scene, the first in a horrifying wave of violence that was about to strike California.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

By the time they arrived, the combined C/FBI task force was crawling over the house, looking for anything that might give them a clue as to where Red John had gone, or why he had chosen Antonia Minelli. Virgil still hadn't been reached, he had left the office around 6 pm and there was no sign of him at home. His cell phone was off and no one had a clue where he could be. Quiet rumblings were going around about his fate, weather or not Red John had taken him or weather he was having a clandestine meeting with a mistress or maybe even a man. Once inside the house things only became cloudier. Walking up a rather ornate staircase, the psychologist and consultant came to the threshold of the master bedroom, and despite knowing full well what evil lay inside, walked in.

Immediately they spotted some differences. Most obviously, Antonia Minelli was still fully clothed. Secondly, her throat had been cut before Red John had stabbed her repeatedly. The characteristic smiley face was drawn over the headboard and teased those inside. Patrick hadn't seen Van Pelt or Rigsby since he walked inside and his only glimpse of Cho had been a shot of his back as he walked from one room to another. Lisbon walked in from wherever she had been just a minute after Alex and Patrick had arrived on the scene.

She had been on scene for almost half an hour now, with Virgil MIA, she was the highest ranking team member What was it about Red John that made the CBI such welcoming targets? Why Virgil? He hadn't cheated on his wife, had he? Was it the other way around? Or did he just work too much? Was that even the motivating factor anymore? So much had changed from all the other crime scenes that a fresh look was needed.

But the more they looked around the room, the more the answers seemed to contradict themselves. Red John was nothing if not meticulous. In all of his crime scenes he'd never left so much as a crooked painting on the walls, but here...glasses were knocked off the night stand near the large bed, the bed sheets were ruffled and messed. Never before had Red John given his victims the chance to fight back, but here, obviously Antonia struggled. There were no marks from a stun gun, the blood spatter was a contradiction in styles, even the smiley face was drawn uncharacteristically upside down..

Even outside of the primary scene debris lay scattered around, as if the perpetrator of this heinous crime had come stumbling from the room and decided to do some remodeling on his way out. Red John never left enough evidence for Patrick to work with, and now he had too much. Patrick took a mental step backwards. He was always obsessed with minutia, the little things that people did and said. Perhaps Alex Cross was having so much success because he took things in a different scale.

Almost instantly, Patrick noticed something interesting. While there were large portions of the room and house that were trashed in rage, there were a few areas that were immaculate. Areas of the hallway where pictures were torn or cut also held perfectly straight photos of an older woman. While Antonia had two jewelery boxes on her dresser top, one was trashed while the older looking of the two wasn't disturbed in the slightest. When Patrick opened it up it became obvious that Antonia didn't use it for her own jewelry. The styles were about as contrasting as possible. Antonia wore either gold or silver necklaces and beautifully sculpted rings, set with either diamonds or other precious stones. This box only had a handful of items, a pair of simple pendant earrings, a small gold necklace with a cross on it, and a set of Rosary beads. Throughout the house the same pattern began to repeat itself. Weather it was photographs, or antique furniture, Red John hadn't touched these objects, why?

And the why became clear to Patrick very quickly. These were all objects that an older would be associated with women, probably from one of the Minelli's mothers. It was a deliberate choice to preserve these items, in the midst of a scene that appeared to be created by rage in the heat of the moment. The scene was staged, but why? Red John had truly turned this case on it's head.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Alex was looking at the scene in his own way. While Patrick Jane was a man who obsessed with why thing ended up the way they did, Alex was looking for what caused them to begin in the first place. To Patrick the bloody face was a taunt, a signature that screamed, it was me! But to Alex it said more. The smiley face is one of the most iconic images in the world used to promote products from corn to laundry detergent, political candidates and emotion. But what makes the stereotypical smiley face special is how people relate to it.

The more detailed an image is, the fewer people it could be, the less people can relate to it. A photograph of Ronald Regan can only be that. But if you take out some of the wrinkles, loose the distinctive smile and blur the hair a little it could be the Gipper, or maybe it's Abraham Lincoln.

The genius of the Red John design was that it was both distinct and vague. You knew exactly who was responsible, but at the same time you knew nothing. It was precisely how Red John saw himself, he felt that he was indivisible from the masses of people that walked the street. Killing was his way of carving his own place in the world, of taking control over his life.

Beyond the gruesome artwork, Alex saw the uncertainty and worry that permeated the scene. Red John wouldn't have changed his methods unless it wasn't bringing him the satisfaction it usually did. But if that were the case you would have expected to see more hesitation and experimentation. Instead of finding the action unfulfilling, it was more like Red John found issue with the victim.

Alex saw the areas void of destruction in the same way as Patrick. The deliberate way in which these specific areas were spared Red John's wrath spoke volumes to what drove the man. He was someone who sympathized with women who had unfaithful spouses, he wanted the men to suffer in a more prolonged and meaningful way than simple physical pain. .

Pieces began to snap into place, Red John's mother figure had been the dominating force in his life, the father was vacant for large portions of the child's life and so the young boy grew attached to the woman who raised him. Red John somehow found out that his Father figure was an adulterer and somehow associated this man's infidelity with something traumatic that happened to his mother, probably her death.

Red John couldn't bring himself to tarnish the things that reminded him of his mother, hence why the heirlooms were spared destruction. All the pieces of the profile were complete now. Virgil Minelli's mother reminded Red John of his own mother because they were the same person. Red John was Minelli, Alex was sure of it, but he had little proof. There had to be something in the house that could prove that Minelli was the elusive killer, but he hadn't found it yet. Alex kept his eyes on Patrick. If Minelli had hidden so much as a teaspoon, Patrick would find it and if he put the pieces together...Alex prepared himself to step between Jane and the nearest doorway.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Patrick felt the eyes of his coworkers on him. None of them had been on the investigating team when Izzy and Mellisa had been killed, so they were still caught up in the idea that Red John had struck so close to home. They were going through the motions, nothing more. Cho, being the most emotionally detached member of the team was actually going through the various rooms and photographing the scene, but there was a distinct air of uncertainty about him. Grace was probably the worst off, despite all the experience she had, the master bedroom had caused her to become ill and flee to the front porch before she threw up her partially digested dinner. Rigsby had gone to check on her to Patrick's knowledge, the two were still sitting on the front steps trying to catch up to the reality they found themselves in.

Patrick didn't know who had been watching him more closely, Lisbon or Cross. Had he been in Las Vegas, Patrick would have bet on Cross, but the intensity that Lisbon carried in her eyes betrayed her nerves about him being here. She didn't like him being here, either because he was supposed to be dead, or just because she always thought him too fragile when it came to Red John, Patrick didn't know or care.

Cross, on the other hand, held an entirely different emotion in his gaze. At first Patrick couldn't place it...it was somewhat familiar, but recognition flitted just out of his grasp, something that angered the man who usually had all the answers. The more he tried to ignore it, the harder he felt Cross watch him, and the longer the feeling of eyes on his back lasted, the more Patrick Jane began to sweat. He hadn't felt this small since...middle school.

Those were...bad years for Patrick. To begin, he had never been the strongest student, his mind was always analyzing and jumping around...ADD before most people knew what that was. But in fast succession, school problems and what was passed off as too much sugar were the least of his problems. His parents, who were owners of their own hotel, were killed in a car crash involving bad timing, a jealous wife and cut brake lines. The civil suit, was what had made him wealthy, before the psychic bit had made him rich.

Izzy had never been ecstatic about his deception, but she had understood that he had made his bed and so she never made too much of a stink about it. It was the lying that finally made Patrick decide to end his charade. Seeing the relief on people's face, and knowing that he did that by lying, by preying on people, their deepest fears and greatest desires...the concern he had to fake in order to sell his lies...it hurt more and more every time he looked into the mirror.

And that was when he placed that unfamiliar emotion. Cross was worried about him, just like Lisbon was, but not for the same reasons. Lisbon was afraid that he would snap and shut down again...Cross was worried that Patrick would make some revelation, put something together from inside this room...Cross knew something!

But no matter how much Patrick looked around the room, he didn't see whatever Cross was. Synapses that had never failed him before didn't fire and in Patrick's head, 1+1 might have been a bushel of potatoes at the moment. For the first time in his vast and powerful memory, Patrick was choking under pressure. The less he came up with, the more angry he became and that lead to him whirling around and grabbing the Doctor-Detective's shirt by the collar and demanding to know what he knew. For that moment in time, Alex Cross was the only other person in the room. He never heard Lisbon's shout of disapproval, his eyes bore upward into Alex's and tried to convey all his emotion through his eyes, the anger, the pain, the helplessness.

And Alex understood and was sympathetic. People like Red John, like Kyle Craig were often born of trauma and abuse that they internalized until it manifested violently. They never sought help for their problems when there was a chance to prevent the murders that were to come and now Alex knew that Patrick would not become the next Thomas Pierce.

Alcoholism, drug abuse and sociopaths...the first step is always the same, admit you have a problem and get help.

Alex put his hands on Patrick's shoulders and pushed him down into the nearest seat without disrupting the scene.

"What do you see when you look at the room?" Cross probed. He was and always had been a believer that one had to come to conclusions on their own and this was his way to try and help Patrick put the pieces together.

"It's a stages scene." Patrick replied a bit robotic ally, something about the attention Cross was giving him, the even, helpfulness in his voice...Patrick couldn't help but answer truthfully.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because the chaos is localized to certain areas. Red John didn't touch the jewelry box over there, or the photos."

"Why would he do that? Destroy somethings and leave the others in peace?" This was the crux of the argument.

"He feels...he doesn't want to destroy them." Patrick's reply was half guess and half question.

"And has he ever shown that compulsion before?"

"He's never destroyed anything before!" Patrick was becoming exasperated.

"So why start now? Why wreck the house here, and not elsewhere?"

Patrick paused and thought. When the answer came to him it was based not on any experience he had in the past, but pure gut intuition.

"He's distancing himself from this kill, it's personal..." And the flood gates opened. The kill was personal...The spared items, the staged rage and anger...Red John identified with this house, with Antonia...with Virgil.

"No." Alex saw the recognition in Patrick's eyes. The rage lifted, the helplessness receded for the moment and both understanding and confusion settled in.

"He...can't be...but...and then....the...why?" The question went unanswered. It didn't need to be.

Lisbon didn't know what had just happened. In about a minute, Patrick had gone from nearly assaulting Alex Cross to having what could best be described as a mental breakdown. Dr. Cross called one of the lower ranking officers over and requested water for Patrick, who was mumbling to himself and fiddling with his hands.

She caught Cross's eye and he answered her questioning gaze.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

By 3 am Virgil Minelli was California's most wanted fugitive. The CBI continued to pour over his house while the FBI combed through his office and computer to try and get a grasp on where he might go or do. Things had become compounded by 5 am, when a report of a gang shoot out came in and the CBI had to investigate. As the morning news cycle began to air the story, tips began to flow in about Virgil, some claimed he was heading to Mexico, others said Oregon.

Patrick had finally come to grips with the fact that Virgil was the one who caused him so much pain and was now working with Alex Cross on a plan to trap Virgil. Theresa was pleased, though a bit surprised, that they worked so well together, but nothing could be done just yet. There was a power vacuum in the CBI, with Minelli's defection, and while she was filling in as best she could, until she either got the word from the higher ups, or someone was officially appointed, all the CBI could do was conduct their investigations and follow the lead of the FBI and that was something no one wanted.

Except of course, Virgil Minelli. He had known full when what his absence would do to the organization he had been a part of and had counted on their incompetence and bickering to give him ample time to disappear from their radar. Now he sat in his rundown motel room planning. It wasn't under is name of course, he had the prostitute he picked up rent the room for a week and paid cash in advance. She now lay in a pool of her own blood on the bed next to him. So much had happened in the past twelve hours and so much was still to come...

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**(A/N: Wow, that took me a long time to get out...and it started out so well too... Anyway, I hope the delays caused by my reworking haven't driven anyone away. Thank you to everyone that has reviewed my previous chapters, I do hope to hear from you this time around.)**


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